Tuvalu becomes the first digital nation in response to climate change

once was.”

Tuvalu,” the site said. The country has also taken on several climate adaptation and resilience projects to protect its resources from climate change, the United Nations Development Programme reported. One of Tuvalu’s islands, Teafualike Islet, now exists digitally on tuvalu.tv.

“Teafualiku Islet, our smallest island, is the first part of our country we’ll lose — so it’s the first we’ve recreated digitally. Without immediate, global climate action, all of Tuvalu will only exist here,” the website states.

Piece by piece we will preserve our country, bring solace to our people and remind our children and grandchildren what our home once was.

– Simon Kofe

He emphasizes that while Tuvalu does what it can to minimize its own environmental impacts, other countries need to come together and take action to truly make a difference. “Without a global conscious and a global commitment to our shared well-being, we may soon find the rest of the world joining us online as their lands disappear,” he said. Towards the end of the video, the full expanse of the digital islet came into frame, surrounded by an empty digital abyss.

BY CATELYN FITZGERALD ’23 SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT EDITOR

Global temperatures are inching closer to 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming and global greenhouse gas emissions continue to be on the rise, according to the 2022 International Panel on Climate Change report.

Of these increases in emissions, the report explains, Small Island Developing States are responsible for a “negligible” quantity. Despite their minimal contributions to climate change, small islands are highly vulnerable to its effects, the United Nations said. As climate change’s worst impacts come closer to being reality, small islands have turned to digital preservation as they face the possibility of being wiped from the physical plane.

Severe storms, rising sea lev- els, coral bleaching, increases in invasive species and drought are all impacts of global warming that are already being felt by small islands, according to the United Nations. Climate change also destroys island ecosystems, which threatens their populations’ access to key resources and livelihoods.

For the Pacific Island countries, this could include a decline in fish yields of over half by 2100, the UN reported. These effects may grow beyond what small islands are able to adapt to before the turn of the century, forcing their populations to migrate, a process for which their governments and legal systems are not prepared.

One of these small island nations is Tuvalu, a country in the Pacific Islands that is composed of nine islands and has a population of just over 10,000 people, according to Britannica. To respond to the imminent threats posed by climate change, Tuvalu has become the world’s “first digital nation” as part of what was dubbed the Future Now Project.

In recent years, Tuvalu has not shied away from demanding climate action. During the COP26 conference Simon Kofe, Tuvalu’s Minister for Justice, Communication and Foreign Affairs recorded his speech to the United Nations while standing kneedeep in the ocean to show the country’s struggle with sea level rise, the Guardian reported.

According to Timeless Tuvalu, the country’s official tourism site, children are taught about climate change starting at the age of six. Children are also taught about emigration, as they “could be the last generation of children to grow up in